


Square One

by moodiful819



Series: Tabula Rasa [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Use of Authority, Reconciliation, Romance, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 09:48:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8139616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodiful819/pseuds/moodiful819
Summary: After a disastrous meeting with Naruto, Kakashi finds himself on Sakura’s doorstep. “By decree of the Hokage, I am supposed to apologize,” he announced flatly.





	

Kakashi scanned the room as he stood in the middle of the Hokage’s office. It had not changed much since his term. All the furniture was in the same place, the scrolls and portraits on the wall the same frozen sentinels he remembered. The only differences he could spot were the addition of two potted plants at the edge of the windows and another computer in the corner flanked by mounds of paperwork.

But while the furnishings had not changed, Kakashi had to admit it did feel quite different to be under Anbu escort on the _other_ side of the desk. Ever since Tsunade retired, he had forgotten this sensation.

Facing his chair towards the center of the room, Naruto dismissed the guards with a wave and a quiet thanks; patiently, the members of Team 7 waited until the door fell quietly shut behind him.

“I left for a summit meeting for two months, Kakashi,” the blonde began slowly. His eyes were still their usual cerulean, but the gaze was hard and stony, nostrils flaring as he breathed. The report in his hand was now crumbled, twisted and strangled in his grip. Kakashi had the urge to chide him. Judging by the strip of red at the top of the document, it was a finance report for the village—something that required much more careful handling—but the older man knew there was a scowl prowling behind the blonde’s bandaged hand and waited to be spoken to.

“Two months,” he repeated disbelievingly, “and everything manages to go to shit while I’m away!”

It was supposed to have been easy. A discussion of the budget, presentations on technological advances within the allied nations, a tour of some of the new infrastructure projects taking place in the region, et cetera, et cetera. He hadn’t understood a thing. Many of the presentations had been far too drawn out, the daimyo once again all got frustratingly drunk and uncooperative, and the amount of traveling and smiling had been grueling. Even Shikamaru had seemed more put-out than usual in his complaints, but most glaringly through the two-month diplomatic parade was how much he missed Konoha. He missed his bed, he missed his wife, he missed his kids… Coming home was supposed to be the start of a relaxing work week.

Instead, it felt like as if Madara had returned from the grave once more to terrorize the village. In fact, Naruto would’ve preferred that. It would have been so much easier if it had been that.

His gaze flitted to the picture of his old team on his desk.

Frustrated, exasperated, the blonde stopped in the middle of raking a hand through his hair to level a flat look at his predecessor. This was all his fault. Granted, he was in some aspects an amnesiac and couldn’t really be held accountable for his actions, but still. _This was all his fault._

“If I wasn’t worried about looking like Sasuke-teme, I’d use my last biological arm to Rasengan you out of the window. You know that, right?”

A noise of frustration escaped the older man. Both of them knew that any congress held behind closed doors in the Hokage’s office would be confidential—especially between a current Hokage and his predecessor—but Naruto was taking this liberty too far, even if the threat was idle. When Kakashi had been given his summons by an Anbu officer, he’d thought the worst. He thought Konoha had been infiltrated by a spy, or that another country had declared war on them again.

But there had been no discussion of a list of suspects and, despite the blonde’s opinion that it was in shambles, the village continued to stand proudly outside the room’s many windows.

Kakashi shook his head disapprovingly. “Your insult to your teammate aside, if you’re done making me your verbal punching bag, I’ll be taking my leave, Hokage-sama,” he drawled sarcastically and began making his way to the door.

“Oh no, you don’t. Get back here!” he ordered, and Kakashi could feel the weight of rank press down on him as his foot hovered over the floor mid-step. It wouldn’t be hard, a voice in his mind argued. He was only five paces away from the door. Despite his rage, Naruto would not chase him, meaning he was exactly five paces away from freedom and the comfort of his own bed after a ridiculous evening of enduring his former student’s misdirected rage. But those five steps also carried the possibility of insubordination, another Anbu escort, and a night in prison. Regardless of the idleness of his threat, Naruto still had _that_ much in him and as much as he’d love to ruffle Naruto’s feathers like he deserved, the older nin wasn’t in the mood to spend his night sleeping on a cramped jail cot.

Slowly, reluctantly Kakashi returned to his post in the center of the room. His hands were stuffed in his pockets–unsurprising for the older man–but Naruto contemplated the fact that Kakashi, who was always proud to face his comrades, was refusing to meet his gaze. Even resentful as he glared at the floor by his feet.

“Do you really have no idea why you’re here?” the blonde asked, frowning slightly from behind his desk.

“No, I don’t.”

“It’s about Sakura-chan.”

At the flicker of emotion over Kakashi’s face—exasperation, annoyance, apathy—Naruto immediately felt his hackles raise. “Don’t. _Just don’t._ And don’t you _dare_ interrupt me. You don’t get to talk. Not after how you’ve treated her. _”_

It was going all wrong. Naruto had planned to be calm about this. After all, they were both reasonable adults, and both had experience with the art of diplomacy. Naruto was keenly aware of needing to take all factors into account. Kakashi had just been through a traumatic incident. His sudden loss of memory was obviously the root of his erratic behavior and had to be taken into account…

But he’d also seen the wreckage of memory in their formerly-shared living room, and had to sit helplessly as he watched his friend moan into a pillow, burdened by the weight of her inconsolable grief.

“You’re a complete asshole for what you did to her,” Naruto began, not even quite sure where to start laying the charges against him. It hurt to watch his team fall apart, but it hurt worse to see how Kakashi was treating Sakura. Even now, he could see it in the older man’s gaze that he had no interest in this meeting. This was merely a lecture to be cast into one ear only to be thrown out the other, but Sakura was not a chore. She was not a harping, mindless burden. She was their teammate. She was their _friend._

“She deserves to be treated better. I don’t care if you don’t remember her. Even if you don’t, everyone else in the village does, and they know what she’s done—what she’s sacrificed for us in the name of protecting Konoha. She fought in that war with us; she helped bring Sasuke back. She’s a goddamn _hero_ —and she’s certainly saved your sorry ass more than enough times to warrant a better attitude from you. You owe her your life, you bastard. The least you could do is treat her with the respect she deserves.

“And by the way, _this—!_ ” He waved silver-haired man’s new housing contract. “This is _not_ how you do it. How dare you just cut her out of your life like this? For Kami’s sake, she’s not cancer, Kakashi. Just because you’re afraid of finding out what you might have lost doesn’t mean you get to freeze her out of your life like this.”

Dragging a tired hand over his face, Naruto slumped back into his chair and frowned at the document in his hand wondering if he was more exasperated or disappointed by the current turn of events. In any event, despite the unusual circumstances, the Nanadaime realized he wasn’t exactly surprised. Rather, the events of the past few weeks seemed to confirm an old suspicion: without Sakura in his life, Kakashi was a complete asshole.

“You’ve always been like this. Every time you fuck up and get scared, you run away,” he said with a sigh as he mindlessly folded the document. “Sakura knew that best out of everyone.”

“Then why didn’t she just barrel on through then? If she knew I was going to be ‘difficult,’ why not just keep going?” Kakashi asked, ignoring the way Naruto crashed his contract-turned-paper-airplane into a pachira plant.

“Because she actually _cares_ about your feelings.”

The simplicity was enough to make his nerves feel raw, but the condescension with which he spoke—something Kakashi didn’t even know the blonde was capable of—seared him enough for his pride to blister. But before Kakashi could stew in his emotions, Naruto slammed his hands on the table with a disconcertingly bright grin.

“Unfortunately for you, you’re not gonna have that kind of luck with me, _sensei_. I’m not concerned about your feelings, Kakashi. What I’m concerned with is the overall health and harmony of the village, and as such: ‘As the seventh Hokage of Konohagakure, I order you to go to the door of Haruno Sakura at once and beg her for her forgiveness.”

In sharp contrast to Naruto’s broad grin, Kakashi’s eyes narrowed thinly. “This is a flagrant abuse of power.”

“Says the man who dodged the Academy opening ceremony twice and had his secretary fill in for him at a council meeting just so you could have sex with Sakura in here,” the blonde scoffed. “Besides, I have valid reasons for doing this. I meant what I said about worrying about the overall health and harmony of the village. The two of you are some of the strongest ninja in the village. There may come a day when a mission requires both of you on the same team, and I need for you to be able to work together as comrades. Right now, the two of you can barely manage being in a public space together, and I will not allow you to jeopardize the safety of your squad just because you haven’t dealt with this issue properly. Dismissed.” 

* * *

 

The walk to Sakura’s apartment was a quiet affair. The distance was not too short and not too long, and the relatively wide road was deserted at this time of night. If he’d been in the mood to be contemplative, it would have been the perfect spot to do it, but Kakashi was irredeemably sour and stalked through night like a cat on its hackles.

He watched the slow, shuffling advance of his sandaled toes as he dragged them through the street. It was an awful posture to take with his chin tucked against his neck as he walked. With his head hung this low, he was undoubtedly stressing the joints of his neck and already, there was a slight crick appearing at its base, but the view helped distract him from the needle-pointed gaze of the Anbu nin five houses back and his vaguely persistent urge to knock Naruto’s teeth out.

Despite his slow pace, it did not take long for the silver-haired nin to reach his destination.

Ascending the steps, he stood at the doorstep. He did not knock; he did not ring the doorbell, instead choosing to stare at the door that greeted him. Being in the older part of town, there was no intercom and no small placard displaying the last name of the resident. Instead, a brass number “12” hung near his head on a red door whose paint was faded and beginning to chip at the edges, and he wondered which of them had convinced the other to live here: him or her? By his foot was what seemed to have once been a daisy plant, heavily wilted in its pot. Long neglected, it seemed as if there was a recent attempt to save it because the faint smell of wet soil pricked his senses, but the flower seemed oblivious to the efforts and continued to lie limp and listless in its container. He supposed there was a metaphor in there too, but he ignored it and instead, knocked twice on the door.

As he waited for an answer, Kakashi stared up at the unit number and tried to recall a life behind this door. According to his personnel file, this apartment had been his home for four years. In those four years, he’d had 62 house calls for mission requests, 5 noise complaints, 2 separate misdemeanors for indecent exposure, and 3 bills from his landlord to replace a burnt window frame. He’d undoubtedly lived a storied life in this apartment, but couldn’t remember any of it and patiently waited on the empty stoop.

The door cracked open and the apartment seemed to sag with this sudden heavy exhale of breath. The air crept out as if trying to escape, hissing like a freshly unsealed tomb. The smell of it transported him. He was small again and swallowed by his house following his mother’s death, the air stale and damp with despair. Tissues dotted and clustered together on the floor like small nests that had become islands as they missed their mark in the trash can, and as he caught sight of the flicker of hope in Sakura’s bewildered eyes, the thought briefly crossed his mind that he had perhaps been unfathomably cruel to her.

The thought was exceedingly short-lived.

“By decree of the Hokage, I am supposed to apologize,” he announced flatly.

Hands in his pockets, he watched the slow focus of her eyes as she registered his words and took the time to look over her appearance. Her hair stuck out in all places from a messy bun, her appearance haggard and unkempt as the mouth of her shirt slid down her shoulder. She obviously had not been expecting company, and while he tried to be understanding, it was hard not to feel a tinge of contempt towards her in this state.

He half expected her to cry. That was probably what rankled him at the end of it all. Any minute now, she would break down in tears and wail and sob, and once again he would be pinned at the chest by the condescending anger and resentment of an entire village. He didn’t deserve any of this, but that didn’t seem to stop anyone from trying to crush him under the thumb of guilt as if it were his fault. Though he was a valuable asset to Konoha, he was not their darling, and he waited for her tears while silently praying that she would just shut the door in his face and for this to finally be over for the both of them.

But she didn’t do any of that, instead stepping past him to lean out from under the roof of her doorstep.

“It’s alright, Neji. I’ll take it from here,” she called out. The glint of a white mask peaked out from above, and he watched her wave her goodbye with a smile as she told Neji to pass her regards to Tenten.

Leaning against the wall by her door, he looked at her with surprise. “You…aren’t mad at me?” he asked as if experimenting with the idea. With the way he greeted her at the door, he thought for sure he’d get at least a slap to the face.

He watched as the rhythm of her hand faltered and he watched the flex of her back through her shirt as she dragged in a shuddering breath. The weight of it seemed to crush her because her shoulders sagged as if groaning, and she turned to look at him, eyes duller and suddenly much older, and he felt the familiar coil of guilt despite himself.

“I’m not mad at you,” she confessed with a heavy sigh. “I wish I could be—I know I should be, _but I can’t…”_ she says, as surprised and perplexed by this conclusion as he is. The sense of defeat is palpable between them. It’s as if someone was prying defeat from her grasp, one bloody clawed finger at a time. For a minute, she seemed to have forgotten him on her doorstep, too haunted by the memories and ghosts that were all her own now, and he had the decency to hate himself in her stead.

She looked up and he felt pinned by her gaze. “I don’t want to fight you over this anymore. I don’t want to be hurt by this anymore.”

His reply was instantaneous before he could stop himself. “I can’t give you what you want.”

She snorted slightly, and there was a gleam of challenge and amusement in her eye that did not quite make it to her lips. “You don’t know what I want,” she said almost sneeringly, the words leaving her tongue so easily, he had the feeling they had done this dance before.

She crossed the small space of the entrance to stand in front of him. She was resolute in a way unlike when he saw her previously, and it almost made her respectable in his eye.

When he doesn’t take her proffered hand, she wants to roll her eyes, but instead she shakes it once between them like a knife or a threat.

“I’m not asking you to marry me again, Kakashi. All I want is for us to be friends again.”

His wariness catches on the desperate edge in her voice as he stares at her hand. Part of him doesn’t trust it. It will not be that simple, a voice in his head warns him. They could not possibly be just friends. Not when he can see the slight tremor in her hand. Not when their past looms over them like a dam about to burst, deep cuts already splintered into its sides. His instincts tell him this is a trap, that he is risking a horrible mistake.

But then he catches her gaze again, chin high and proud as if she were looking at him on equal footing, and he’s learning (or relearning) the honesty in her tone. She will not endanger him. She merely just wants to be friends again, and at the very least, _she is trying_ —which is more than he can say for himself.

His gloved hand slips into hers, dwarfing it as he closes his fingers around her with a firm grip, and shakes once.

“Hello,” he greets.

“Hello,” she greets back.


End file.
